Plight of Kashmiri Pandits Today

Kashmiri Pandits refers to a person who belongs to a particular sect of Hindu Pandits who originate from the Kashmir region. Kasmiri Pandits have recorded history in Kashmir for thousands of years and have also been mentioned in the Mahabharata. Kashmiri Pandits have Aryan features like most Indians. Many experts speculate that the Aryans originated in Kashmir, India.

During the Islamic period of the Kashmir valley, hundreds of temples in Kashmir were destroyed. As a result, Kashmiri Pandits gradually migrated to other parts of India to escape persecution, which resulted in Kashmir becoming predominantly Muslim.

More recently (1990) thousands of Kashmiri Pandits had to flee the Kashmir valley because of being targeted by Kashmiri and foreign militants. Mosques in Kashmir declared jihad and blared warnings from loudspeakers to the Hindus that they were infidels and had to leave Kashmir. From 1989-1990, Islamists began a terror campaign to drive Hindus from Kashmir". Some people have noted that some Kashmiri Muslims were tolerant of minorities, but since partition, most Kashmiri Muslims have adopted a more conservative approach to Islam, and since 1989, a more militant and fundamentalist approach. By the turn of the last century, only 6.4% of Kashmiris were Hindus10. The US Department of State reports that the Kashmiri Pandit population in Jammu and Kashmir dropped from 15 percent in 1941 to 0.1 percent as of 2006.

Kashmiri Pandits have suffered crimes amounting to ethnic cleansing from the Kashmir Valley, coinciding with the onset of the Kashmiri separatist movement in 1990. Roughly 12000 were killed since insurgency began in Kashmir, and 300,000 have been displaced, though some sources claim that more than four to five thousand Kashmiri Pandits were killed and more than Five hundred thousand were made homeless in the initial violence. Indian sources claim that nearly 500,000 internally displaced families of Kashmiri Hindu live in the National capital region, though this number contradicts Kashmiri Hindu estimates that 300,000 people have been forced into exile. (Delhi) US Rep Frank Pallone had referred to the Kashmiri Pandit movement as ethnic cleansing during his speech to the House of Representatives.